EUROPE is bracing itself for a NUCLEAR terror attack after a power plant employee was shot dead and his security pass stolen, it has been reported.

The unnamed security officer at a nuclear site in Belgium was walking his dog in the city of Charleroi, 50km from Brussels, on Thursday evening when he was reportedly gunned down.

Local media reported that police had confirmed the man’s security pass was stolen during the brutal assault, just two days after the terror attacks in the Belgian capital.

The shooting and theft come at a worrying time for Europe as Brussels suicide bombers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui were reportedly planning attacks on Belgium’s nuclear power stations.

The brothers reportedly planted a hidden camera in front of the home of the director of the Belgian nuclear research program.

The footage with “dozens of hours” of the movements of Belgium’s nuclear boss was seized during an anti-terrorist raid in an apartment belonging to another suspect, a member of the same terror cell, Mohammed Bakkal, newspaper Derniere Heure reported.

The arrest of Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam, four months after last year’s deadly attacks in the French capital, is said to have accelerated the terrorists’ plans.

Belgium was already on high alert following the Brussels attacks, which killed 31 people and injured hundreds more.

On Tuesday, Brussels was rocked by twin blasts at the city’s Zaventem Airport and, less than an hour later, an explosion at the Maalbeek Metro station, just meters away from key EU buildings.

Belgium’s two nuclear power stations, in Doel and in Tihange, were evacuated after the blasts and soldiers have been seen at both sites in recent weeks.